Connecticut’s largest (and America’s oldest) newspaper is now going to be printed in Massachusetts
"Life in this company can feel like death by a thousand cuts."
The Hartford Courant, which was founded in 1764 after its publisher was fired by Benjamin Franklin from another local paper, is ending its long run printing out of Connecticut.
According to a story Monday in the Courant, the 256-year-old newspaper is outsourcing its printing to Massachusetts and laying off an undisclosed number of workers, amid steep industry-wide declines in advertising revenue that have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the year, the Courant‘s daily editions will be printed by The Republican‘s presses in Springfield, though the shift reportedly will not affect its distribution and circulation.
“The Courant remains committed to its mission of telling the stories of the people of Connecticut,” Andrew Julien, the Hartford Courant’s publisher and editor-in-chief, said in a statement. “We are not in any way changing the mission of the paper.”
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According to The Republican, its presses in Springfield already handle printing for several other Western Massachusetts and Connecticut outlets.
Claiming the title of the country’s “oldest continuously published newspaper,” the Courant‘s history predates the Declaration of Independence by more than a decade and includes a real estate ad placed by George Washington and a successful Supreme Court libel fight against President Thomas Jefferson.
But the announcement Monday raises questions about the Courant‘s future, as local newsrooms across the country have been slowly hollowed out. Owned by Tribune Publishing, the Courant‘s newsroom has seen its workforce sliced in half over the past decade to around 60 workers, down from 135 in 2009. Last month, the Hartford City Council passed a resolution calling on Alden Capital — a New York hedge fund with a 32 percent stake in Tribune Publishing and a reputation for “siphoning” revenue from its newspapers — to stop the layoffs.
According to the Courant, the latest news means the paper will not be printed on its own presses for the first time in its history — with the exception of a handful of days during floods in 1936 and 1955.
“Life in this company can feel like death by a thousand cuts,” the Courant‘s union tweeted Monday afternoon. “Here’s another one.”
Life in this company can feel like death by a thousand cuts.
Here’s another one. https://t.co/tdFJjjqe8Y
— The Hartford Courant Guild (@CourantGuild) October 19, 2020
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